Saving Seafood

News for the North Pacific Region

Biden EPA deals major blow to Pebble mine

May 26, 2022 — EPA today proposed a ban on mining in Alaska’s renowned Bristol Bay watershed, seemingly closing the door on a long-sought-after copper mine project and protecting one of the world’s premier salmon fisheries.

The Clean Water Act veto would likely spell the end to Pebble LP’s mine proposal. EPA says the mine would destroy nearly 100 miles of protected stream habitat and more than 2,000 acres of wetlands and federally protected waters. The harm from digging for copper and gold would also “reverberate downstream,” damaging other fish habitats, the agency says.

It’s a victory for the lawmakers, tribes, commercial anglers and conservation groups that fought for President Joe Biden to undo an EPA move during the Trump administration to tear apart a previous veto of the mine. Support for protecting Bristol Bay has been bipartisan, with Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News host Tucker Carlson pushing the Trump administration to revive the veto (Greenwire, Aug. 24, 2020).

“Today’s announcement is an important step toward protecting Bristol Bay from the Pebble Mine for good and we hope EPA will move quickly to finalize the 404(c) Clean Water Act process to enact durable, long-lasting protections for the region, as we have requested, as soon as possible,” said Katherine Carscallen, director of Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay, which issued a joint statement in support of the veto with the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, SalmonState and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

While the proposed Pebble veto would be a victory for environmentalists, it also arrives as Biden and congressional Democrats are trying to thread the needle between environmental stewardship and supporting the mining needed to supply electric vehicle manufacturing and renewable energy projects (Climatewire, April 19).

Pebble is only the latest of multiple large copper mines to be delayed or blocked under Biden, after the Twin Metals mine in Minnesota and the Resolution copper mine in Arizona (Greenwire, Jan. 26).

Read the full story at E&E News

 

University of Washington research aiding salmon run forecasting in Alaska

May 25, 2022 — The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association (BBRSDA) and the University of Washington Alaska Salmon Program hosted a webinar on Thursday, 5 May, to present their 2022 salmon forecast for Bristol Bay, as well as ongoing research into run timing, environmental impacts, and fish and climate trends in the bay.

Founded in 2005, the BBRSDA is an organization established by Bristol Bay fishermen to support all aspects of the sockeye salmon fishery, from marketing and infrastructure to research and education. The University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program has partnered with BBRSDA to research the Pacific salmon fisheries of Alaska in an effort to gain understanding of the changing ecosystems and provide knowledge necessary to management and conservation.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Biden administration seeks injunction against Alaska to halt Kuskokwim River fishery

May 25, 2022 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday, 24 May, filed for an injunction against the U.S. state of Alaska to keep it from allowing all residents from taking part in a subsistence fishery on the Kuskokwim River.

The motions for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction were filed in a U.S. federal district court in Alaska. They’re the latest step in a lawsuit the federal government filed against the state, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and ADFG Department Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Federal government sues Alaska over Kuskokwim salmon fishing rules

May 20, 2022 — The federal government is suing the state of Alaska over its management of salmon fishing on the Kuskokwim River.

The lawsuit says the state is violating Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act by allowing all Alaska residents, no matter where they live, to engage in subsistence fishing of king and chum salmon when there isn’t enough fish for all uses. But ANILCA specifies that the subsistence preference is for “rural Alaska residents.”

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage.

For years, both the state and federal governments have managed fisheries in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, which covers virtually all of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Sometimes their rules conflict. For instance, in June of 2021, the state declared the lower Kuskokwim open to subsistence gill nets while federal managers said it was closed, to protect the resource.

Kevin Whitworth, interim director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, sees the lawsuit as beneficial to tribes and rural residents.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska Anticipates Limited Salted Salmon Roe Production and Air Freight to Japan

May 17, 2022 — The Copper River salmon fishery, which is the start of Alaska salmon fishing season in Alaska, opened today, May 16, which is one day earlier than last year.

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the first day of the season opener is set from 7 am for 12 hours on May 17, and fishing restrictions continue for king salmon as usual for resource protection, Suisan Keizai reports.

According to the previous forecast, the Fish & Game said that the number of sockeye salmon fishing in the Copper River area would increase to 1,432,000 fish this summer, including the returning to the hatchery, which is more than double the previous year’s level, but 34% less than the average of the past 10 years. Last year, the actual catch was 404,653, 68% less than the 10-year average of 1,250,000 fish.

Read the full story at Seafood News

As Copper River salmon season opens, Alaska gears up for big runs in 2022

May 17, 2022 — The salmon-fishing season in the U.S. state of Alaska officially began Monday, 16 May, with the opening of the Copper River fishery.

The first 17,200 pounds of Copper River salmon arrived in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. on an Alaska Airlines flight at around 8:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday, 17 May, according to Lusamerica Director of Communications and Sustainability Peter Adame. Lusamerica is the parent company of the Monterey Bay Seafood brand.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Alaska to get nearly $132 million for fisheries disasters

May 9, 2022 — The U.S. Commerce Department is allocating $131.9 million to Alaska for fisheries disasters that occurred between 2018 and 2021, according to Alaska’s U.S. senators.

States may request federal assistance for fisheries after hurricanes, oil spills and other types of natural and manmade disasters that harm a commercial fishery.

The funding for Alaska is for a series of fisheries disasters, including for the Yukon River salmon fishery the last two years.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

 

ALASKA: Record 74 Million Sockeye Run Forecast for 2022, Low Return for Pinks, as Expected

April 26, 2022 — Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game has released their final “Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2022 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2021 Season” and once again Bristol Bay is outdoing its own record of consistently massive returns.

The forecast for the statewide total salmon return is lower than last years by 800,000 salmon, but it doesn’t detract much from the forecasted run in the Bay.

The 2021 inshore Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run of 67.7 million fish is the largest total run on record — 64% above the 41.3 million average run for the latest 20-year period. It was also the third time on record that the sockeye run exceeded 60.0 million fish. Last year’s 42.0 million harvest was 15% above the 36.4 million fish preseason forecast and the third largest harvest on record. It was also the third time in the last 4 years that landings  exceeded 40.0 million fish.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Bering Sea crabbers and communities are struggling with Alaska’s snow crab decline

April 21, 2022 — Bering Sea crabbers and communities in the region are struggling with a steep decline in snow crab this year, likely the result of climate change.

That caused the crab fleet to push farther north than usual and forced places like St. Paul to consider major budget shortfalls, because the Pribilof Island city depends on taxes from fish and crab processing.

The snow crab crash and its impacts are the subject of a recent reporting collaboration between the Seattle Times, the Anchorage Daily News and the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines reporting initiative.

As part of the “Into the Ice” series, Seattle Times reporter Hal Bernton and ADN photographer Loren Holmes spent two weeks in January aboard a crab boat called the Pinnacle, one of the biggest in the fleet at 137 feet.

Read the full story at KTOO

Southeast Alaska gillnetters are part of a national study on commercial fishing and sleep

April 21, 2022 — Researchers from New York were in Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau and Cordova last week gathering information on salmon gillnetters as part of a study on sleep deprivation.

The research organization is the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety. It’s a non-profit that’s funded through the Centers for Disease Control to come up with solutions for work-related issues with fishermen, farmers and forestry workers.

Right now they’re studying the relationship between commercial fishermen’s sleep and health.

The research team is on the tail end of their data gathering. They’ve already collected information from scallop fishermen in Massachusetts, Dungeness fishermen in Oregon and salmon gillnetters in Alaska. As a control group, they’re studying inshore lobster fishermen because they just go out on day trips.North

Julie Sorensen is the director of the research center. She says they hope to finish analyzing the data this summer and be able to share some of the findings in the fall.

Read the full story at KTOO